Ed. Note: We have a new COALman! Please welcome michaell to the crew. Pictures (except for the last one) are representative examples from the web.

In the spring of 1982, I was just about ready to graduate high school. The ’65 VW Bug my parents bought for me was being troublesome, and it was time for me to up my financial responsibility and get my own car. Dad still wanted input into what I bought, which is how I came to be the owner (along with the local credit union) of a 1979 Pontiac Sunbird. This was the two door coupe, beige with beige vinyl interior, 4 speed manual transmission and the ubiquitous 2.5L “Iron Duke” engine. The car and I had plenty of experiences – some good, some bad. Allow me to share them with you in this first of my COAL submissions….

The Sunbird had less than 12,000 miles on it when I bought it – it was owned by an elderly couple who, I think, were downsizing to just one car. If I remember correctly, the purchase price was $3850, though my dad and the owner agreed to put a lower number on the bill of sale to save on the taxes (here’s hoping the statute of limitations has expired for this transgression, else the State of California will be interested in this post).

The car was basic – no A/C, no tach, AM radio only. The engine sounded industrial, but I was quickly able to figure out how to shift by ear. The back seat was almost useless, and the trunk was unbelievably shallow. Despite these deficiencies, the Sunbird was a definite upgrade over the VW.

Being a teenager in car-crazy California, I immediately set about customizing it to make it mine. This involved dragging my older cousin – the one with the know-how and the tools – into my projects, which included the following modifications:

A pair of both white and yellow driving lights mounted under the bumper, switched so they worked independent of the headlights

A Kraco (remember these?) AM/FM/cassette stereo and a pair of box speakers mounted on the rear parcel shelf – the shelf was too shallow to mount speakers into it, so I had to buy speakers with a bracket that mounted on the shelf.

And, the piece de resistance, a sunroof – nothing brought me more fear than watching my cousin draw the template on the roof of my car and whip out a skill saw. But, the installation went off without a hitch.

I loved having “my” car –the freedom to go where I wanted, when I wanted. After a couple of semesters at the local community college, I enrolled at a college in Phoenix. I packed my worldly belongings into the back seat and trunk, and off I went. I took a bit of a detour – rather than taking I-10 from LA to Phoenix directly, I took the southerly route down I-5 to San Diego and across I-8 to Yuma, where another cousin and his family lived. The car performed pretty well on those long stretches of highway, though I found that after I arrived in Yuma two of my tires were pretty much bald, so a quick stop at a local Firestone store corrected that issue.

Phoenix in the early 1980’s was quite different than the Phoenix of today, in terms of the road network. I-10 did not connect all the way into town, but rather ended in Buckeye, about 35 miles west of the city. Surface streets were needed to go the rest of the way. And, instead of the full network of highways that now cross and surround the metro area, there were only two – I-17 that ran north and south on the west side of town, and I-10 that ran east and west.

I settled into my new routine – school and work. As I had moved to town in February, the weather gradually warmed up. I think the local weathercasters were contractually obligated to use the term “warm” so long as the high temperature was only 2 digits; when the highs got above 100 they could finally use the word “hot”. In a car with an aftermarket sunroof, vinyl seats and no AC, this meant that yours truly started to get quite miserable every time I got behind the wheel.

I offered my parents two choices: 1) add factory AC to the Sunbird, which would have run about $2000, or 2) invest in a pair of real sheepskin seat covers, which were about 20% of the cost of the AC. Within a week, I had a new set of seat covers installed in my car. Those, along with the tried and true “2-55” approach to climate control (2 windows open, 55 MPH), kept me reasonably comfortable for most of three Phoenix summers.

Later that year, I was running errands when a lady attempted to make a left in front of me at an intersection. I T-boned her, which resulted in my car spending a couple of weeks at a local body shop, and me some quality time with a chiropractor. That incident was the beginning of the end of my time with the Sunbird, though I didn’t know it yet. After I got the car back, it never did run right. Not being mechanically inclined, I and the car spent a lot of time at both the closest Sears Auto Center and Union 76 gas station/garage. First, the heater core was in need of replacement, then I found out that a pair of motor mounts had been broken in the impact. As I had driven the car with the engine leaning to one side, I suspect this screwed up the linkage between the engine and transmission, making it difficult to get it into and out of reverse. While I got the motor mounts replaced, I lived with transmission issues, as I didn’t have the money to fix it properly or ditch the car in favor of something else.

On one occasion, I took the car back to CA for a break between semesters. A classmate who lived in the LA area came with me, and on the return trip, my younger sister and her best friend accompanied us. Right where I-10 ended outside of Phoenix, we heard a loud “BANG” and the car slewed to the right. I was able to navigate the car to the side of the road, where I discovered that the right rear tire tread had delaminated from the belts, and the rubber had dented the fender behind the wheel. Another pair of new tires were necessary.

My car had these same wheel covers

Still, the car never left me stranded – it wouldn’t start in hot weather consistently, which was about 9 months of the year, but I was always able to get it started eventually. Another mystery ailment, I suppose. I took it on road trips to the Grand Canyon and Sedona a couple of times, and, other than the aforementioned issues, it ran well. Friday nights were spent cruising the road that surrounded the Metro Center mall.

After the accident, reverse was a so-so proposition, and got worse the longer I had the car. During my last semester of school, I finally decided it needed to go to a transmission specialist to figure out the problem, once and for all. On my way to the repair shop, I was in the right lane of a three lane arterial road, and I looked over my shoulder – as I was taught to do – to move into the middle lane. However, at the same time, the car in front of me slowed to make a right turn into a business. I was between lanes when turned back around. I saw the problem, which was unavoidable. My right front collided with the left rear of the car – which was some sort of 70’s American full-size. I think the bumper of that car suffered a small dent, while the front corner of my car was demolished. The insurance company decided to total the car, and I received a check for $2000 in return for the title.

I was able to find a photo of the front two thirds of my car; you can spot one of the driving lights under the front bumper.

It was an inglorious end to a car that was both frustrating to live with yet provided me with my first true taste of freedom. I got one speeding ticket and a few warnings from the local police when I used the driving lights without the headlights, and the car had somewhere around 50,000 miles on it when it met its end.

As I still had a couple of months of school left, I had to find a replacement pretty quickly – the result of that search will serve as the subject of my next installment.

34 Comments

I have not seen one of these in decades. I remember them well, although for an odd reason.

A good friend in high school came from a hard-core Mopar family that got long service from their cars. In the late 70s the kids drove the 63 Newport 4 door hardtop that had been purchased new and their “good car” was a 73 Polara station wagon. The dad was driving a 75-ish Duster. When it came time for a new car for the mom, it was a silver-blue Pontiac Sunbird, so maybe 1978 or 79. I was crushed that they would abandon Chrysler, but the dad was savvy enough to understand that Chrysler had become a poor alternative.

I have no idea how long she drove that Sunbird, which was a very nicely equipped version. Yours sounded like the opposite, with no air and a stick shift. Thanks for a great story on a forgotten car, I will eagerly await reading about the Bird’s replacement.

I’m an infrequent visitor and even more infrequent commentor, but I had to comment here because your experience is so close to mine.

I graduated HS in 1986 and had just sold my 1976 Camaro and needed new wheels before heading to college. I found a 1980 Monza hatch, 4 cylinder 4 speed and picked it up for $1500. I think it had 86K miles.

I too added fog lights and also pin striping, window louvers, a spoiler and chrome wheels with gold centers and white letter tires. And I too took a saw to my roof and added a sunroof.

That car got me through 5 years of college plus a year after, all the time slowly self destructing. Door hinge pins worked loose and fell out, the clutch cable froze and tore a hole in the firewall, valve seals, timing gears and in the end it wouldn’t start reliably so I was roll starting it. It also caught fire. Twice.

I also rear ended a larger vehicle, a Chevy pickup in my case, and pretty much wiped out the front end. I put it back together with junkyard parts, swapping the chrome bumper for the more stylish rubber. I eventually upgraded the paint from the original brown to a Cadillac metallic blue. Of course, being the 90s, I added neon pin striping.

A guy in high school drove one, but it belonged to his parents. This guy had a weird and unpredictable disposition, sort of like a cat, and we alternated between being friendly and not. Anyway, he drove that Sunbird a lot. It however, was a red hatchback with the 3.8 liter (I’m guessing that’s the six it had) engine.

Since it was the fastest of the three vehicles he had driven, it was thus the fastest car on the road. Also, he had read a 1989 era issue of Motor Trend and saw a 3.8 rated at 160 or so horsepower, thus that ’79 had that same amount of power in his mind.

His first car was a Buick X-car.

Oh, the things that will trigger memories. Welcome to the COAL Train, I’m looking forward to many more.

Thanks, enjoyed this write-up. The featured photo looks just like my sister’s Sunbird that she bought used around 1981. Even though it was built on the same platform as my dad’s ’76 Monza hatchback, the straighter lines, notchback format, V6, and Pontiac nameplate made it seem like a lot more car.

I had a 1980 Sunbird hatch. Same color. Same interior. Same iron duke. Mine was an automatic and had the hatchback.

Reliable but gutless, loud, and not particularly comfortable. My friend had a beautiful blue Honda Accord. The difference was night and day in every respect. The Accord seemed like a Mercedes next to the under-achieving Pontiac.

My dad paid about $4k for mine. I think it had 27k miles but looked new. We bought it from a friend.

I took my driving test in my Mom’s one year old ’76 Sunbird…a 3.8 V6 auto in firethorn red, rally wheels, and a white top. AM radio and no air. And, I can confirm, the back seat was useless…defintely needed Dad’s Catalina for the girlfriend! The trunk was indeed a joke…great for envelopes. It was the last domestic car my parents would ever own.

I drove it much more than Mom, but it constantly had problems from sagging doors, an auto shifter that would come off in your hands, and a motor that constantly knocked at anything over 50mph….over time I learned you had to run it low on oil, just below the minumum line, to keep it quiet. And, we lived in a cold salty place…it rusted everywhere. What a crap box….we kept it 5 or 6 years, but only 50k miles.

In there remaining 35 years, the parents would never by another domestic. It wasn’t so much that the Japanese and Germans invaded their driveway, it was more GM sending them to find anything else at any cost…and that next ’82 Accord just seemed so much better. Sad.

I had a 77 Sunbird coupe that I got from my grandmother who lived outside Windsor. My parents surprised me with it for my birthday, even getting it across the border (back then it would not have been a big deal as it is today) and hid it in the neighbor’s garage so I wouldn’t see it!

Mine was orange metallic with black interior, auto, 231 cu in V6 (3.8), no AC either. Mine had cowl vents that exited on the floor under the dash. If you were moving it was OK. Michigan summers are hot and humid, but not Phoenix hot.

I drove it for a few years until rust started to take hold, despite my best efforts. The wheel wells seemed designed to trap mud and snow! Being RWD it was fun and sometimes scary to drive in the snow.

Overall mine was reliable, the front springs were starting to sag when I owned it, but it always started and ran fine (though not Lexus smooth with that odd-firing distributor – 2 blanks on an 8 position cap!). Also it did not have a fan clutch, so high rpms (relatively speaking) generated a roar from the direct-drive fan. Maybe the fan generated some additional thrust?

One time I was driving a couple friends to the store on a snowy night. I tried to cross I-275 but the Sunbird couldn’t make it up the hill! After a few attempts, I decided to give up. I put the Sunbird in reverse and did my best Rockford Files J turn on the snowy and empty overpass. I went to the store another way that did not involve a hill!

As it was my first car, it has a spot in my memory as you can tell. When my mother decided it was too rusty, she donated it when I was at school, when I came home, it was gone.

I lived in Arizona for several years and summers out there can be hot. I was in the Air Force and stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. My vehicle was a ’69 Firebird; dark metallic blue with matching seats. In the summer those seats got hot, and driving was a miserable experience. It didn’t help that the a/c worked intermittently, and I would usually exit the car with my shirt plastered to my back. And of course in the winter-it can get cold during the winter in AZ-the vinyl seats were totally miserable then as well. Next car I purchased had cloth seats and were vastly more comfortable.
I remember in 1977 when Pontiac released the Sunbird, reading a Sunday newspaper ad with a Sunbird parked next to a BMW 2002, with some guy longingly looking at it-I always thought that ad was the height of absurdity as the Sunbird was nothing more than a restyled Vega with the POS Iron Duke engine in it.

Ah, one’s first car is sort of like one’s first love, we are willing to overlook faults because it is our first. At least you did get several years of service from the Sunbird, many times the first car dies an early death due to the combination of being mostly used up when acquired and being driven by a teenaged male.

I never experienced either driving or even riding in a Sunbird; numerous Cavaliers, the occasional Firenza and even a lone Cimarron, but never the ‘bird. I did get some wheel time with the Sunbirds successor, the Sunfire (or Sunkist, as it was known in some circles). Back in the early oughts I owned a Pontiac Grand Prix that required a new power steering pump every six months. The service department at my local Pontiac dealer never had one of the pumps in stock, it had to be ordered from the warehouse. This would mean my car would be out of service for at least one more day, fortunately they would always offer me a car from their inhouse fleet. Invariably this car would be a bottom feeder Sunfire; I honestly don’t remember much about them other than these had to be the last American cars in captivity with manually cranked windows.

A friend of mine had a 10 year old yellow coupe when we were in HS. I found the backseat to be perfectly adequate for one person. You sat on one side and put your feet in the other footwell. 😉 Yes, we had the day when the hinge pin fell out and had to hold the door closed until my house to get tools.

Welcome Michaell! One of my grad school faculty/research employers had one of these in silver, with the Iron Duke, a/c and automatic. It was better appointed but more claustrophobic than my Vega. The Duke was pretty reliable, but didn’t run very well unless I kept it tuned for him exactly to specs. Biggest problem he had was that the engine vibrated so badly that the bolt that tightened the alternator would loosen monthly, causing the accessory belt in turn to loosen and squeal and the battery to drain. Wish I had known about Loctite. He traded it after a coupje of years for a first generation Prelude and felt like he had gotten tenure.

A Vega with an Iron Duke. Pretty much a perfect car. As a former Vega owner whose only real problem was the engine, I’m not being sarcastic. Although, being from an older generation, I don’t remember 2-55 air conditioning. We called it 4-60; 4 windows down and 60 miles per hour.

A good from high school got a new Sunbird in ‘77 – of course anyone that age with a new car you just think they’re the bomb. It served her well if I recall until New England rust took hold after 4 years.

Speaking of customizing your ride, my new ‘81 Corolla hardtop really got the treatment – driving lights, Kamei front spoiler, CB radio….and like you I cringed when they cut into the car to put in a sunroof. I also put in a Celica steering wheel since it was cool looking.

Stupid me didn’t get AC, and a year later moved to Texas. Didn’t have many dates during our 9 months of hot (or always took her car, who ever it was at that time…), but it wasn’t too bad in “winter”. I also drove it out to LA twice during those years, tackling the desert at night. Finally in ‘84 a friend and I pulled a system out of a wrecked Corolla (not that hard – back then Toyota added ac to new cars at the dealership…) and installed it, as well as cruise control.

That was a great little car that made it 200k miles before I moved on….

Why no no, sir, an excellent COAL, but that isn’t a Sunbird – the car below is a Sunbird (by Holden in Australia ’77-79, a fine-handling but horribly underpowered by an Opel 1.9, then an even worse pushrod Holden 1.9, could be be had with a more acceptable 3.3 six as a visually identical Torana, also, this one here has silly wheels). Exact same Sunbird script for it as in the Ponty, too. Interior quite similar.

Is the, er, unboastfully-sized gearlever in the picture representative?

I love those alternative-universe cars that are similar but not to the US ones I grew up with. Until the internet I had no idea there was so much more car-world out there. I like learning them all over again.
Aussie cars seem like what American cars would have been like without the malaise/emissions/bumper regs of the 70s. The US was the beta-tester for all that stuff that eventually led to better cars.
You’re welcome.😉

I was in a car pool for a few months. One of the ladies had a Sunbird coupe like the one featured in this article. I’m about 5 feet 9 inches tall. One time, I got assigned to the back seat. It was the only time in my life I experienced real claustrophobia. It took real effort to hold myself together.

I was relieved when the car pool broke up – I’d never have to sit in the back seat of a Sunbird again!

My wife (then-girlfriend) came real close to getting the Chevy equivalent of this car, the Monza Coupe, IIRC. Her choice back then for a used car was a fairly new Monza or a 1977 Olds Delta 88; she chose wisely and went with the Delta 88.

A buddy of mine in college got a 1977 Olds Starfire as a daily after his 1976 Regal puked it’s last. This car was bright yellow with a saddle tan interior, the odd-firing Buick V6 and a five speed. He ended up calling it the Sunfish for some crazy reason I don’t recall. The car was fairly well taken care of when he got it, with little rust for an Ohio car. He drove it for the next several years until he replaced it with a VW Scirocco. After owning the Scirocco for a few months, he wanted the Olds back, but that’s a different story for a different time.

The car was fairly zippy for the times, the five speed was really a four speed with OD, and combined with the torquey V6 it could move out pretty well. But the car had terrible build quality and I swear that V6 was going to shake the car to pieces. But, the real killer of the car was the rust; while various other systems held up pretty well, there was no way to stop the rust once it started.

I still think the Buick V6/5 speed cars were the best of this breed of H-body, at least as a daily driver. 2.3 Durabuilt and Iron Duke cars were slow and buzzy and the V8 cars were fast, but I think that (at least from the factory) they had more motor than brakes and suspension. But the V6 ones seemed to hit the sweet spot for power and usability.

1990.. driving my girlfriend’s 1980 Sunbird with a 4 speed, no power steering, no power brakes.. a bashed in passenger door, … was the first car I learned to drive stick on and was one of the first cars my girl rode a stick in.. that I knew of… good times and a really fun little car with a hell of a little V8 in it, was quite quick

A friend of my Moms had a 1979 white Monza – I think it was a Towne coupe model. It was white with the half vinyl white top as well with red velour type interior. This was in the mid eighties. I was probably 13 years old when I rode in the backseat – tiny and cramped. She had the V6 engine. What I remember most about it was it seemed years older than it was and it had many rust spots. Mind you that was in Toronto, so the road salt took its toll on the car. She decided she no longer needed a car and put an ad in the Auto Trader and sold it for $ 2,000.00 as is. This was in 1984.

Thanks to all for the warm welcome. I’m working on the next set of articles – turns out there are a lot of cars to document since 1982. Hope to keep you entertained, and I’m looking forward to the comments, both good and bad, regarding the cars I’ve owned.

Great story! We had bought a 1980 Sunbird–blue with a white vinyl roof–for $500 in about 1992. It was pretty beat up, but it was a cool little car, and I remember being really impressed by its sportiness, even though it wasn’t very fast.

Not too long after we bought it, we’d noticed that the engine block was cracked (most likely when we bought it), but it was a cheap beater that we’d bought really only to get us through a few months’ service. Even still, it had made a 4 1/2 hour trip to the United States during the dead of winter at Christmas time and made it back home to Canada, so I’ll always remember it being reliable, even when it was on its last legs. We drove it to the crusher and I remember trying to convince my Dad to try to save it (maybe I’d fix it up), but he said that it was too far gone.

These (and the Monza, and Buick/Olds versions) were really competitors for the Mustang II.

I remember there were many more Mustang IIs. I have a couple of Mustang II stories–amusing from friends/acquaintances, but not uplifting. I put an Audiovox stereo in a buddy’s car in HS, and I pushed another’s dead one into a gas station.

Personally, I thought the Sunbird coupe looked better, AND it was a GM car. But the 3.8 V6 reputation was not so great (rough running). Even though I could not drive, for me the new, Fairmont-based 1979 Mustang was THE car that I wanted.

But I would have liked any car at 16 (I didn’t have my own car til 21), and a Sunbird with manual trans would have been great!

A co-worker bought one of these in 1981…it replaced his ’74 Ford Maverick 4 door. What I remember more than the car itself was the financing; as a used car he got a 24% interest rate (which wasn’t unheard of in 1981). I felt lucky that my ’78 Scirocco had “only” a 16% note on it. I financed it though my company credit union…which my Manager at the time was the president of….so I magically qualified for an extra $500 loan (the amount of the loan was also based on your tenure at the credit union, and as a new employee, I had very little time there).

I think he had the Sunbird a few years, probably into 1984, when he had gotten married and became a family man, and the Sunbird was probably traded for a Buick Century….but it was an OK car for him at the time.

My sister/parents later bought the very different FWD J car Sunbird, both of them in 1984…my sister bought hers first, my parents later in the year (after an accident in their 1978 Chevy Caprice Classic Wagon). That Sunbird was probably the worst car my Father ever owned, having 2 new engines expire in less than 80k miles (despite the car being serviced per the owners manual). My Sister had better luck with hers, which died from rust and still had its original engine at the end. Same model name, but a very different car.

The first car bought with my own money was the Sunbird’s sister car, a 1976 Monza Town Coupe. Since my mother already had a Monza hatch with Bicentennial interior a Monza seemed like a safe bet. I got the car in 1982. I too added a AM/FM cassette player, Audiovox for me, and speakers. This is my little brougham, my mother’s car next to mine and my father’s Fairmont behind.